|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 48
Finally, there seems to have been a strong feeling among the extreme
secessionists, who loved the right of secession for its own sake, that
the accelerating increase in the relative power of the North would soon
make secession, on any grounds, impossible. Unless the right was to be
forfeited by non-user, it must be established by practical exercise, and
at once.
Until about 1825-9 Presidential electors were chosen in most of the
States by the Legislature. After that period the old practice was kept
up only in South Carolina. On election day of November, 1860, the
South Carolina Legislature was in session for the purpose of choosing
electors, but it continued its session after this duty was performed. As
soon as Lincoln's election was assured, the Legislature called a State
Convention for Dec. 17th, took the preliminary steps toward putting the
State on a war footing, and adjourned. The convention met at the State
capital, adjourned to Charleston, and here, Dec. 20, 1860, passed
unanimously an Ordinance of Secession. By its terms the people of South
Carolina, in convention assembled, repealed the ordinance of May 23,
1788, by which the Constitution had been ratified, and all Acts of the
Legislature ratifying amendments to the Constitution, and declared the
union between the State and other States, under the name of the United
States of America, to be dissolved. By a similar process, similar
ordinances were adopted by the State Conventions of Mississippi (Jan.
9th), Florida (Jan. 10th), Alabama (Jan. 11th), Georgia (Jan. 19th),
Louisiana (Jan. 25th), and Texas (Feb. 1st),--seven States in all.
Outside of South Carolina, the struggle in the States named turned on
the calling of the convention; and in this matter the opposition was
unexpectedly strong. We have the testimony of Alexander H. Stephens that
the argument most effective in overcoming the opposition to the calling
of a convention was: "We can make better terms out of the Union than in
it." The necessary implication was that secession was not to be final;
that it was only to be a temporary withdrawal until terms of compromise
and security for the fugitive-slave law and for slavery in the
Territories could be extorted from the North and West. The argument soon
proved to be an intentional sham.
There has always been a difference between the theory of the State
Convention at the North and at the South. At the North, barring a few
very exceptional cases, the rule has been that no action of a State
Convention is valid until confirmed by popular vote. At the South, in
obedience to the strictest application of State sovereignty, the action
of the State Convention was held to be the voice of the people of the
State, which needed no popular ratification. There was, therefore,
no remedy when the State Conventions, after passing the ordinances of
secession, went on to appoint delegates to a Confederate Congress, which
met at Montgomery, Feb. 4, 1861, adopted a provisional constitution
Feb. 8th, and elected a President and Vice-President Feb. 9th. The
conventions ratified the provisional constitution and adjourned, their
real object having been completely accomplished; and the people of
the several seceding States, by the action of their omnipotent State
Conventions, and without their having a word to say about it, found
themselves under a new government, totally irreconcilable with the
jurisdiction of the United States, and necessarily hostile to it. The
only exception was Texas, whose State Convention had been called in
a method so utterly revolutionary that it was felt to be necessary to
condone its defects by a popular vote.
No declaration had ever been made by any authority that the erection of
such hostile power within the national boundaries of the United
States would be followed by war; such a declaration would hardly seem
necessary. The recognition of the original national boundaries of
the United States had been extorted from Great Britain by successful
warfare. They had been extended by purchase from France and Spain in
1803 and 1819, and again by war from Mexico in 1848. The United States
stood ready to guarantee their integrity by war against all the rest of
the world; was an ordinance of South Carolina, or the election of a _de
facto_ government within Southern borders, likely to receive different
treatment than was given British troops at Bunker Hill, or Santa Anna's
lancers at Buena Vista? Men forgot that the national boundaries had been
so drawn as to include Vermont before Vermont's admission and without
Vermont's consent; that unofficial propositions to divide Rhode Island
between Connecticut and Massachusetts, to embargo commerce with North
Carolina, and demand her share of the Confederation debt, had in 1789-90
been a sufficient indication that it was easier for a State to get into
the American Union than to get out of it. It was a fact, nevertheless,
that the national power to enforce the integrity of the Union had never
been formally declared; and the mass of men in the South, even though
they denied the expediency, did not deny the right of secession, or
acknowledge the right of coercion by the Federal Government. To reach
the original area of secession with land-forces, it was necessary for
the Federal Government to cross the Border States, whose people in
general were no believers in the right of coercion. The first attempt
to do so extended the secession movement by methods which were far more
openly revolutionary than the original secessions. North Carolina and
Arkansas seceded in orthodox fashion as soon as President Lincoln called
for volunteers after the capture of Fort Sumter. The State governments
of Virginia and Tennessee concluded "military leagues" with the
Confederacy, allowed Confederate troops to take possession of their
States, and then submitted an ordinance of secession to the form of
a popular vote. The State officers of Missouri were chased out of the
State before they could do more than begin this process. In Maryland,
the State government arrayed itself successfully against secession.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|